Evidence of meeting #27 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was mail.
A video is available from Parliament.
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Thank you very much, Mr. Paradis.
For your information, that was five and a half minutes. I appreciate the economy of words.
Next on my list is Monsieur Dubois.
4:40 p.m.
Guy Dubois National President , Association of Postal Officials of Canada
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I thank the committee for this invitation.
The Association of Postal Officials of Canada represents approximately 3,500 members throughout the country. These persons generally supervise the processing and delivery of mail.
We are here today because in 2013, we were told during a conference call that Canada Post had a profitability issue, that we were being given a five-year grace period, and that a solution had to be found. Shortly thereafter, a five-point action plan was released. We deplore the employer's lack of transparency in this process. Since we consider ourselves very close to management because of our oversight role over postal operations, the employer could have shown greater transparency in this matter.
We see that Mr. Deepak Chopra stated earlier today that we were part of the solution. Unfortunately, we think that Canada Post missed a good opportunity at the time of including us in its discussions, of sharing the fact that there was a problem with our pension plan, that we were going to hit the wall, and finally, of letting us take part in the search for solutions.
We received the report of the task force and we hope that the government will make the right decisions. If we really are part of the solution, we expect to be included. There is no doubt that all of the bargaining units at Canada Post do not all share the same vision. We can support certain measures, but needless to say, transparency is an important factor in the corporation's success.
Since the stage has been set, we hope that a recommendation in favour of transparency will allow the four Canada Post bargaining units to sit down with the employer to explore solutions, rather than letting the corporation impose its solutions on us.
Thank you for your attention.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Thank you very much, Mr. Dubois.
The final intervenor I have is Mr. Palecek.
Am I am pronouncing your name correctly, sir?
4:45 p.m.
Mike Palecek National President, Canadian Union of Postal Workers
Yes, that's right. Thank you.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Good. I got lucky. I have a name that gets butchered a lot, so I hate doing that to others.
Please, sir, for five minutes or so.
4:45 p.m.
National President, Canadian Union of Postal Workers
Thank you.
My name is Mike Palecek. I'm a letter carrier from Vancouver, and I'm the national president of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers.
With me is Jan Simpson, our first national vice-president. We also have our entire national executive board seated in the gallery. That's our leadership from across the country. We don't quite have 22 vice-presidents like Canada Post, but we have leaders across the country who are here today.
We represent about 48,000 postal workers at Canada Post in two major bargaining units. We've been actively involved in the very creation of Canada Post as a crown corporation and in fact every review of Canada Post since then. We built Canada Post, and we have a better understanding of the day-to-day operations than anybody.
Like some of the others here today, we're very concerned about the report from the task force. We believe it's a very flawed document. We're concerned that the committee's consultations will be based on this document and therefore tainted. The paper is filled with errors, with misrepresentations, and there are serious omissions as well. The CUPW will be providing to this committee a complete detailed breakdown of that at a later point. For now I'd like to touch on a couple of examples of this.
The paper predicts that Canada Post will lose money this year, even though all signs point to the contrary. They've had a fantastic first two quarters. It also completely omits that in the first two quarters of this year, for the first time, the growth of parcels has eclipsed the decline of letter mail. We expect that trend to continue going forward as parcel delivery grows. As a matter of fact, the German post office announced this week that they expect their parcel volumes to double by the year 2025. We expect to see similar things in post offices around the world.
It also notes that CUPW and Canada Post recently signed two tentative agreements, but fails to mention that one of these agreements includes important changes—changes that Canada Post told us are necessary for the corporation to considerably expand its market share in both parcel delivery and direct mail.
The task force paper says that only 7% of supporters of postal banking would use that service. That is factually incorrect and not what their survey said. The survey they conducted was of the entire public, not just supporters of postal banking. They found that 7% said they would certainly switch to postal banking or use its services. A further 22% said they would probably switch to postal banking. I don't think you could find a bank in this country that would not be happy with 29% market share of banking. And yet from this they tell us they don't think this is the best option moving forward.
We've heard from people across this country—from rural communities, the urban poor, and all sorts of people—that these services are urgently needed. Unfortunately, we don't have time to go into all of the submissions we've put together today. As you can see, they're hefty, and that can't be done in five minutes, but the vast majority of these issues were not addressed in the task force report.
We've prepared submissions on the financial situation of Canada Post Corporation and a pattern of deception and misinformation from Canada Post management. Year after year, Canada Post predicts that their revenues and profits will be substantially less than they are. It appears they've done it again this year. It was by about $100 million last year and about $500 million the year before. We simply have no faith in the predictions and projections they have made.
We've put together submissions around home delivery and the importance of maintaining it, and about how Canada Post can be used to help green the economy and green its own services. These are important issues. This government has made big commitments around climate change, and it needs to use the crown corporations. It needs to use its assets in order to bridge those gaps and make those commitments. Again, we see nothing on these.
I understand time is short, so I'll leave it there. I look forward to your questions.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Thank you very much.
I want to thank all of you for your economy of words. I truly appreciate it as do, I'm sure, all members of the committee.
We'll go to our seven-minute rounds. First up we have Mr. Whalen. I would ask all colleagues that, if you're going to be sharing your time, you please let me know at the outset of your intervention how much time you're going to cede to a colleague so that I can interject at the appropriate moment and make sure your colleague gets his or her spot at the microphone.
Mr. Whalen.
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll be ceding two minutes of my time to Mr. Robillard.
Again, I also want to thank all of you for coming. It's very difficult in the short time allotted for us to get all of our thoughts out. Please do know that all of your written submissions will certainly be taken into account as we work to prepare the report. Also, I don't think that the committee feels bound by the mandate that was given to the task force. Our mandate is to provide our recommendations on the future of Canada Post.
As was expressed by me yesterday, my personal thought is that the mandate of the task force was somewhat circumscribed in that they were were restricted in looking at the future of Canada Post as a self-sustaining entity. Following up on the initial question of my colleague who was here earlier, I'd like to ask each of you and each of the organizations to answer in one sentence whether you feel that Canada Post best serves Canadians as an enterprise, as a service, or as a combination of an enterprise and service.
Maybe we could just go in the same order in which you started.
September 21st, 2016 / 4:50 p.m.
National President, Union of Postal Communications Employees
I think public policy objectives are the primary responsibility of Canada Post.
4:50 p.m.
National President , Association of Postal Officials of Canada
I would say both.
4:50 p.m.
National President, Canadian Union of Postal Workers
Yes, it's a public service, but it's also a source of revenue for the government, and has been consistently.
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
That's great. It seems that we've had the corporation and the unions agree on something today, which is good.
When we look at the task force report, my own view was that they did quite a rigorous financial analysis. It involved external parties to review, again circumscribed. The task force says that even with an optimal implementation of the options that were presented, Canada Post will not be positioned to operate in the future on a financially self-sustaining basis over the long term.
Mr. Palecek, you represent the largest union here at the table. Could you or Ms. Simpson let me know what you feel about that statement in the Canada Post report? Are there are other lines or other ways that they could achieve the savings needed or the revenue needed to become self-sustaining?
4:50 p.m.
National President, Canadian Union of Postal Workers
Absolutely. They could achieve revenue growth through a whole number of proposals that we've put forward, not just postal banking, by the way, but also broadband services and various services that leverage the existing delivery network of Canada Post.
I think one of the most glaring omissions from the task force report surrounding postal banking was actually the report from Canada Post that was done in 2010, and this was asked about. I will say for the record that Minister Foote assured us that she would obtain this report, and her staff assured us that it would be public so that we could see this stuff. We haven't got it yet, still. Of the 800 pages in that report, over 700 are redacted, and as for the ones that aren't redacted—you can see for yourself—all the information is deleted. You can look at all of the various headlines that they put where they declare this a win-win situation and a proven diversification strategy. These are the words of Canada Post management. Of course, finally—
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Thank you, Mr. Palecek. We'll move off the banking; I'm sure someone else will come back to it. Is there another line of business you feel that revenue can come from?
4:55 p.m.
National President, Canadian Union of Postal Workers
If you look around the world, you'll see post offices are doing an awful lot of things. One of the things that we've talked about is a letter carrier program where the letter carrier could check in on seniors who live at home. They have programs like that up and running in France, for example. Around the world, post offices are diversifying. It's only here where they seem to be refusing.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
You have about 30 seconds, Mr. Whalen, before we go to Mr. Robillard.
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Okay.
Do any of the unions have any particular evidence about the revenue that would be generated by postal banking, based on any studies that you've commissioned, that would provide any solid evidence or a foundation for postal banking revenues?
4:55 p.m.
National President, Canadian Union of Postal Workers
Sorry, could you repeat that?
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Have you commissioned any separate, independent studies that provide evidence of what postal banking revenues would be in Canada?
4:55 p.m.
National President, Canadian Union of Postal Workers
We've commissioned studies about the viability of postal banking in Canada, and they've all come back with glaring success. But I would suggest that if you'd like to see the revenues, you should ask Canada Post management about their five-year financial projections for postal banking, which they've deleted from the public version of this report.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
Yves Robillard Liberal Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My question is for Mr. Palecek.
As we know, Canada Post is trying to find ways to save money. What can you tell us about safety in the workplace in connection with the employees you represent in this situation? If many of my fellow citizens are afraid to pick up their mail from dangerously placed mailboxes, what are your colleagues going through?
4:55 p.m.
National President, Canadian Union of Postal Workers
We've certainly had issues with the community mailboxes and we've engaged quite broadly with the public around this, as I'm sure you're aware. Our members have concerns about it. We have concerns about an increase in repetitive strain injuries, for example, if we're required to do the same work over and over putting things into boxes. There are concerns about the safety of the placement of some of these boxes. Maybe I could take you to some of them. There are some that are downright dangerous.